Login

How To Steal To The Top Of Google: Use the News

There are a lot of internet businesses out there vying for that coveted spot as the #1 listed site on Google. How would you like to completely leapfrog over that numero uno spot, and actually be listed better than #1? In other words, you can completely “steal” the absolute highest listed spot on Google.

There actually is a method to it, and I’m not talking about simply paying for a sponsored listing either. Oh no. This is much better than that. Before I go into how you do it, let me ask you something. Do you really pay much attention to advertisements on the web?

If you’re like most people the answer is, “no, not really.” You see, the average person completely glosses over most ads on internet sites without even focusing on them. However, an interesting news article gets read. The right kind of news article will actually get people to act on things (like visiting your web site).

My point here is an old (for the internet anyway) maxim started by Mark Joyner that goes “all clicks are not created equal.” What he meant by that is that a visitor that comes to your site from an ad is actually much less likely to buy from you on that visit than is someone that comes to your site because of some sort of beneficial news article that they read somewhere.

So, when possible, it is much better to get good press than it is to simply buy advertising.

Now before I go any farther, let me say that I am not at all suggesting that you shouldn’t be advertising your business. However, getting some good press is not only free, it will also result in many times more visitors that are far more likely to buy from you.

That then begs two questions. First, how do you get good press? Second, what does that have to do with getting listed above the number one spot on Google? Good questions both my friend, good questions both.

Of course the answer to one is quite easily given, the answer to the other not so much. You see, if you perform certain searches, lets say “President Bush,” you will see. Listed above the number one search terms the following:

News results for President Bush:

And that will be followed by some recent news stories. So in other words, if you can get yourself into some newspapers, you may very well find yourself getting listed in just such a section, above the number one search term.

Further, because it is “news,” people that read the news article are much more likely to visit your site and buy from you than are most other visitors that come to you any other way.

Understand what I am saying. Getting yourself into the news will not only get you visitors from the subscribers to that newspaper, but it will also get you listed above the number one spot on Google. And because of that you’ll get more visitors from people all over the world that read the article. In other words, getting yourself into the news has a lot to do about an article on how to get “good rankings” in Google.

That only leaves the question of how you actually get into the news.

Let me tell you what you don’t do; and that’s send out some boring press release about how great your product is. It won’t get picked up by the media, it won’t get listed in Google, and it will be a waste of your time if not your money too.

Unless you are one of the Fortune 500, people don’t care about you or what products you have for sale or what products you are going to release. No matter how great the product is. You could have a product that would end hunger worldwide, and if you sent out a press release the way 99.99% of all press releases look, people will continue to go hungry because not a single reporter on the planet will care.

What you need to do first of all is put yourself into the shoes of the reporter and the newspaper. People can give me all the B.S. about journalistic integrity and so on that they want. At the end of the day, the newspapers have to get sold. The only way to sell newspapers is to have stories that people will want to read. That means that a journalist needs to be able to write compelling news about things people care about.

So you need to think to yourself, how can I help to make a reporter’s job easier? How can I leverage my product to aid a reporter in their job of creating compelling news articles?

Let me give you a good example. Lets say you sell a product that teaches people how to swing a bat properly and is aimed at baseball and softball players (and their parents). What you do is you hang back and you proceed to watch some baseball games, waiting for one of the big name batters to make some significant batting mistake. When they do (and they will because no one is perfect) you send a press release that says:

“Holy Crap! Did you See The Mistake Barry Sosa Made At Bat?”

You then talk about the error, that was made, say what the correction is, and give a link to a page on your website that talks about common batting errors and how to fix them, and gives contact information for reaching you by voice. And you had better answer the phone, and if you miss the call you had better call back promptly.

Let me reiterate what I just said. The phone number you give goes to you. Not your secretary. Not your marketing VP. You.

That press release gets sent out to every single sports reporter in the country (or at least to those that you know about), by fax (not email, not B.S. internet media press release, by fax) well before the game is over. You just became a sports reporter’s best friend. You’ll probably get written about by a very significant percentage of the sports writers. But you may find yourself getting called for interviews by both TV and radio personalities.

You’ll find that article popping above the number one search term for things like “baseball” and “hitting” or “batting.”

You see, the technique I just mentioned allows you to solve a reporters problem. How to find news that is actually news. Any idiot can report the scores and the newspapers know that. But the reporters that pick up your “story” will be heroes to the newspapers because it’ll be something interesting. It’ll be about something that happened to a “celebrity” and explains how to “fix it.” All it takes is imagination and the willingness to keep your eyes open and “exploit” current events to your favor.

Did you just hear about some bad business decision by some major celebrity? That’s good news if you do almost anything related to the financial sector.

Is the price of gas going up? That’s good news if you do almost anything that helps to extend a car’s fuel economy.

But you have to be willing to be bold, to use your imagination. Notice that the headline above may actually “offend” some people. Believe it or not, that’s a good thing. Now, you don’t want to go out of your way to be offensive, but at the same time, some people are always offended by anything that is bold and out of the ordinary.

If you want your company, your web site, to be picked up by the news you have to stand out. You have to be bold. You have to be willing to stand out from the crowd. Some people are going to be offended by that.

The person that was listed number 1, and is now below you may find offense that they’ve been displaced from the very top spot.